


The Perfect Moment

by sarahcakes613



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: 5+1 Things, Groping, Italy, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Mild Smut, Romantic Fluff, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:22:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28199811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahcakes613/pseuds/sarahcakes613
Summary: Five times Rafael is going to propose while they are in Italy together, and one time Sonny manages to do it first (and not even in Italy).
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 34
Collections: Barisi Holiday Exchange 2020





	The Perfect Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StillNotMeShh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StillNotMeShh/gifts).



> I am so so thrilled that I got to write something for darling Sandra, who gives so much to us as a community! Her prompt was Rafael and Sonny spending a holiday in Italy and oh man I hope I gave you at least some of what you wanted to see, sweetheart!
> 
> I had a blast revisiting my own trip to Italy a couple of years ago. I didn't get to Venice, but the sights of Rome, Tivoli, Siena, and Florence all match what I saw. Including the Diana fountain in Tivoli. Go ahead and look that up on Google when you hit that part of the story, you (probably) won't regret it.

Rome

He’s got two weeks to do this, Rafael reminds himself. It’s okay if he doesn’t do it right away.

Even if Rome is just about the most romantic place he can think of to propose to a devout Catholic. Their Airbnb looks out onto the entrance to the Musei Vaticani, and he knows Sonny’s been chomping at the bit to get inside and see all the incredible art of his faith.

He’d spent a fair amount of the plane ride reading bits of Wikipedia entries to Rafael, interesting anecdotes about Michelangelo, Bernini, and the artist for whom he was himself named, Raphael.

Sonny’s in the shower now, rinsing off the airplane ride, and Rafael takes the opportunity to go over the plan for tonight in his head. They’ve got tickets to a sunset concert, the orchestra sinfonica di Roma playing an assortment of instrumental pieces from some of Sonny’s favourite movies. It’s taking place in the shadow of the Colosseum, with seats set up in the open air and the natural acoustics, even in the half collapsed ruins, will transport listeners into the stories as if they are in the films themselves.

They will get something to eat first, and then take the metro over to the Colosseo station. For their first night in Italy, Sonny is insistent they get authentic Italian pizza. It’s easy enough, there is a pizzeria two storefronts down from where they are staying. They share a Margherita, although Rafael teases Sonny, threatening to tell the restaurant owner about the toppings he usually orders back home.

“Don’t you dare,” hisses Sonny. “What goes on between me and my pineapple pizza is my business.”

Rafael laughs, but his amusement dies when he takes his first bite of the piping hot pizza. Fresh creamy cheese and tomato explode in his mouth and he moans in delight. Sonny nods in agreement.

“It’s the mozzarella,” he says through a mouthful, only he pronounces it like a local, emphasising the double consonants. “It makes all the difference when it’s fresh.”

Rafael doesn’t care about why it’s so good, only that it is, and together they make quick work of their dinner before heading down into the metro.

Sonny knows they have tickets to a concert, but not where the concert is, and Rafael can’t wait to see the realization cross his beautifully expressive face.

And the surprise was worth it, as he’d expected. Sonny is telling him about some artist whose sculptures he is looking forward to seeing in the Vatican’s contemporary art collection, his hands waving shapes in the air as they emerge from the metro station. His hands drop and his face transforms, his mouth opening and his eyes widening as he realizes where they are.

“Oh my god,” he exclaims as they make their way to the line for ticketholders. “How did you swing this, do you know how few tickets they sell for these shows??”

Rafael just smiles mysteriously. He does know, and it had cost him giving up a favour to a judge who has a cousin in the embassy, but it’s absolutely worth it for the light that shines in Sonny’s eyes.

The concert is wonderful, but Rafael barely hears the music, so focused on Sonny’s breathing next to him. His boyfriend is on the edge of his seat the entire time, trembling with emotions that can barely be contained.

The concert ends and the orchestra takes their bows before setting up for an encore. This would the perfect moment, he thinks, Sonny shining in the moonlight. He could just reach into his pocket, pull out the tiny velvet box, and say the words.

And then the music starts up again and the moment passes. It’s okay, though, he reminds himself. They are in Italy for two weeks. There will be other perfect moments.

“That was incredible!” Sonny gushes all the way back to their rented apartment. “I mean everything about this is incredible, but that was just. Wow.”

He’s wired, amped up from the show and still operating on New York time, so even though the city around them is pushing midnight, his body is as awake as if it was only just suppertime. Despite his energy, they both know they need to try and get some sleep if they want to adjust to the time difference easily.

Rafael wraps his arm around Sonny as they lay in bed, his chest against the taller man’s back.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, tesoro,” he murmurs into the crook of Sonny’s neck. “I love surprising you.”

Sonny shifts, pulling at the thin blanket as he turns to face Rafael.

“You constantly surprise me,” he whispers, “just being here with me is like a dream I never want to wake from.”

His eyes glitter in the dim light coming in from the street and Rafael kisses them closed, light lips against thin eyelids.

“I never want to be anywhere else but with you, Sonny. If this is a dream, we’ll sleep forever.”

Tivoli

While he admittedly hasn’t spent much time on elegantly terraced grounds, Rafael is still quite certain Villa d’Este is the most romantic park he’s ever been in.

They’ve strolled through the villa itself, admired the restoration work done on the crumbling frescoes and mosaics. They’ve had drinks in the café, an affogato for Rafael and a small glass of limoncello for Sonny.

Sonny teases Rafael about his choice, more of a dessert than a beverage.

“You’re going to spoil yourself for supper if you have ice cream for lunch,” he jokes, but Rafael simply arches an eyebrow and sucks his spoon into his mouth, swirling his tongue around and drawing it out with a pop.

“You were saying?” He asks, voice low.

“Guh?” Sonny says, his mouth hanging slightly open. His eyes are focused on Rafael’s tongue, still playing over the spoon.

Rafael smirks and finishes his drink, intentionally leaving drips of ice cream on his upper lip for Sonny to notice and kiss away.

The fountains are stunning, each more extravagant than the last, and Rafael loses count after two dozen. Sonny’s guidebook counts for him, and he reads to Rafael, telling him about the hundreds of meters of channels that use gravity to send water through the levels of the garden to every fountain and basin and grotto.

Rafael’s favourite is the path that walks by the Hundred Fountains, faces carved out of a wall with water pouring from their mouths. Sonny loves the majesty and symmetry of the Organ Fountain, and his breath is stolen away when the music swells up as they stand in front of it. It reminds Rafael of carnival music, if he’s being honest, but Sonny shushes him when he expresses that thought.

“It’s played by _water_ , Rafi.” His boyfriend gestures. “It’s so cool!”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t cool,” he argues. “It just also makes me think of the carnival and now I want circus popcorn.”

“You’ve never even been to the circus.” Sonny slings an arm around Rafael as they keep walking down the gardens.

That’s not true, Eddie’s uncle had taken them all once, and Rafael’s lasting memory of that giddy adventure is the salty sweetness of the popcorn and how it had left him full all day.

The lower garden fountains are smaller, less elaborate, except for the one they now find themselves in front of. Diana of Ephesus stares benevolently out at them, water pouring from her dozen breasts.

This would be a good place to propose, Rafael thinks. The fountains and green rolling landscape are a beautiful backdrop, and this fountain will make the moment even more memorable.

“Oh, yes,” he can say airily when friends ask how he proposed, “we were at the Villa d’Este, in front of that fountain with all the breasts.”

He reaches surreptitiously for his pocket, where the ring still sits in its box. The movement shifts Sonny’s arm, still hanging loosely around his shoulder, and his fingertips graze over Rafael’s chest.

Sonny looks around to see if anyone is nearby and then turns to face Rafael, slipping a hand up under his jacket and t-shirt to pinch a nipple.

“Oye!” Rafael’s hand falls from his pocket and his eyes dart around, but no one is looking over at them. “Sonny!”

“I like yours better,” Sonny grins lasciviously as he leans closer, shielding their bodies from view as his fingers grope at Rafael’s chest.

His nipples harden under Sonny’s attention, and then his cock, and he coughs loudly when a family passes by them. Sonny lets go with one final caress, stepping back and patting his shirt into place.

The ringbox stays in his pocket, and Rafael vows to never tell Sonny about how he cockblocked his own proposal.

Florence

Rafael considers himself to be fortunate enough that he’s travelled quite a bit in his life, and this is his third time in Italy, but he’s never before been able to put Florence on his itinerary.

Now that he’s here, he never wants to leave.

They are walking down a side street the first time he sees the Duomo up close, first just a hint, a glimpse of red stone at the end of the alleyway, and then the narrow street opens up and it’s laid out in front of him in all it’s glory and all of his breath leaves his body. Next to him, he can tell Sonny is having the same experience because the hand holding his tightens.

They eat dinner on the patio of a small restaurant in the shadow of the dome. It’s more formal than the other places they’ve dined out so far and they’re both dressed up for the occasion in what Rafael thinks of as dressy vacation wear – long slacks and button-up short sleeve shirts, open at the collar, but with jackets.

Sonny orders pasta alla Genovese and takes up the refrain he’s been repeating over this entire trip. “I swear, Raf, my ma’s herb garden is great, but there’s somethin’ special about the basil grown here.”

Rafael has the pappardelle with mushrooms, and he’s too busy having a mild love affair with fungi to disagree with Sonny’s statement.

When their plates are cleared, nearly licked clean, they sit back and share a bottle of Chianti. The Duomo looms over them like a benevolent god and Rafael keeps gazing up at it and then back at Sonny. The dark creams and burnt sienna reds of the masonry are a contrast in negatives against his pale skin and silvering light brown hair. As the sun descends to a fiery glimmer on the horizon, Sonny looks as much a marble statue as any they’ve seen, his very own Galatea come to life.

That night, he spreads Sonny out on the bed of their small rented apartment, taking him apart with his tongue and putting him back to together with his hands. Writhing under him, Sonny is not marble stone but entirely warm flesh.

They spend the next day walking the length and breadth of the city until they find themselves on the Ponte Vecchio, peering into displays of beautiful jewelry. Sonny’s carrying a worn leather satchel over one shoulder, and it begins to fill up with purchases as he finds gifts for his sisters and mother.

Rafael spots a storefront that is displaying delicate filigreed rosaries, and thinks about the worn plastic beads his mother fingers when she prays.

“I’m going to go look for something for mami,” he points at the store and Sonny nods absently.

“I’ll be right there, I just want to look around here a bit more, see if maybe I can find something for Mike.” He’s looking at a display of more masculine jewelry, chunky rings and leather strapped bracelets.

It’s hard to choose, each rosary is uniquely designed with elegant carved beading. He finally has it narrowed down to two options when Sonny joins him, sliding a small wrapped box into his bag. He blushes when he sees Rafael watching him and Rafael smiles to himself. Sonny had already picked a souvenir up for Mike when they were in Rome, and he’s pretty sure whatever is in that box will wind up under their Christmas tree with his own name on it.

“Get the blue one.” Sonny says, hooking his chin on Rafael’s shoulder.

“Yeah?” He looks at the blue one and then the red one he’s also been considering. He gestures to the shopkeeper and once it’s wrapped and paid for, he gives it to Sonny to add to the items in his bag.

“What am I, the pack mule?” Sonny grins though, and takes the small shop bag from him, tucking it carefully into his satchel.

“I need both hands free,” Rafael says loftily. “Otherwise how am I supposed to do this?”

This, it turns out, is twine his fingers with Sonny’s with one hand while holding a salted caramel gelato cone in the other hand. Sonny’s gelato is pistachio, and the flavours mingle on Rafael’s tongue as they kiss.

This snapshot in time, walking along the covered bridge with his hands holding his two favourite things, could not possibly get more perfect. Even if his hands weren’t both currently occupied, stopping to get down on one knee would break the magic of the moment, and so another opportunity to propose passes by.

Siena

They think about going on a group tour of the Tuscan countryside while they are in Siena, but their Airbnb host waves off the idea and offers forward her daughter as driver-slash-tour guide.

Silvia is a university student studying economics, and she apologizes for her mother's pushy enthusiasm as they drive into the countryside, heading towards her uncle’s winery.

“My mother, she wants for me to marry an Italian boy,” she waves as she speaks, one hand staying on the wheel while the other gestures. “I think she hopes maybe this one, eh?”

She points to Sonny, who blushes profusely. Silvia and Rafael both laugh, and she tells them about the boy she is dating, a non-Italian international student at the university who is studying biology.

Silvia’s uncle Maurizio welcomes them to his winery and leads them through the vineyards and fields of wildflowers that are used to produce flavoured cordials. He’s a bombastic man with a large red nose, and he encourages them both to try samples of a number of vintages.

An early supper is served in a room with wide open arched windows that look out onto the acres of lush vineyards. Maurizio and Silvia seem to take up an ongoing argument, their mouths and hands moving rapidly as they debate back and forth, and Sonny tries to keep up, to interpret for Rafael, but gives up eventually with a laugh.

“They’re speaking too fast,” he says. “Between the regional dialectic differences and the accent, I can’t keep up.”

Maurizio apologies profusely and they switch to English, including Sonny and Rafael in their discussion. Silvia wants Maurizio to modernize and diversify, wants him to open up his venue to tour buses, and he’s stubbornly refusing the notion.

“It is too much,” he insists, “I am busy with tourists, I have no time for the grapes. My wife, she is busy with tourists, she has no time for the baking.”

Rafael tastes the baking in question and agrees with Maurizio on principle. “Anything that results in less of this is a bad idea,” he says, pulling the plate of almond biscotti closer towards him.

They purchase two bottles of wine to bring home for Olivia and accept a cellophane-wrapped packet of biscotti that probably won’t even make it as far as their luggage, and Silvia drops them off at their apartment.

Between them, along with the many samples, they’d polished off most of a bottle of very strong wine, enough that they’re feeling tipsy and keep hushing each other with giggles as they fall up the stairs to their suite of rooms.

Rafael trips into the bedroom to get ready for a shower, but finds himself falling onto the bed, Sonny’s weight at his back.

“Can I help you?” He says with a laugh, pushing Sonny off to turn over onto his back.

Sonny’s respond is to straddle his waist and grind down. “I want you,” he murmurs. “I kept watching you, when we were in the grape fields. Did you know your eyes are the same colour as grape leaves?”

“Are they?” Rafael bucks his hips slightly and Sonny’s legs fall open wider. He’d had similar thoughts, in fact. In the setting sun, eyes dark with arousal, Sonny’s blue eyes shift to the almost purple of a Sangiovese grape.

They undress slowly, stopping to kiss constantly, still wine-drunk enough that their fingers fumble on buttons. When they’re finally naked, Rafael pushes himself further up the bed, spreading his legs for Sonny to slot himself between.

Sonny opens Rafael slowly, taking his time with a teasing softness until Rafael aches with need. When he finally pushes himself in, it is with a low groan and bitten-off curse.

“You’re so perfect, Rafael.” Sonny gasps, his hands holding the other man’s legs up and apart. “Always so perfect for me.”

When he comes, he muffles a shout into Rafael’s shoulder, words he can’t make out. When Rafael comes, he has to bite his tongue to keep from crying out the question he’s been trying to ask this entire trip.

Venice

Venice is the last leg of their trip, and Rafael is running out of time to propose. He knows there isn’t actually a timer on this sort of thing, he even knows Sonny will say yes no matter where they are in the world when he asks, but he’s never before failed at a self-imposed challenge and he doesn’t like the idea of losing that streak.

This is the region Sonny’s family is from, both sides going back generations in Veneto, and Sonny blends in with the people around them more than in any of the other cities they’ve been to. In Rome, people had assumed Rafael was the local but the reverse is true here, and anytime Sonny gives his last name, someone knows someone who knows a Carisi living just in the next town over.

There’s a genealogist in Padua who welcomes them into his cramped office and lets Sonny pore over birth and baptism records. Family history has never held much interest for Rafael, but he has even less interest in dimming the light shining in Sonny’s eyes, so he hums occasionally as Sonny points things out to him, and smiles at the faded black and white photographs.

He does get bored eventually though, and he steps outside, sitting in the courtyard and catching up on texts from their friends back home. Olivia has been especially active despite the time difference, texting him all morning, asking for updates on his proposal scheme.

His only response is a frustrated emoji, a man with his hand over his face.

Sonny knows this part of the trip has been entirely for his own benefit, and he squeezes Rafael’s hand gratefully as they leave Padua.

“I know you were bored,” he acknowledges, “but thank you. Teresa’s going to love all the new information we have now.” His eldest sister maintains family records and has been making noise about writing a history of their family’s arrival in America.

Rafael squeezes his hand back. “Time spent with you is never boring,” he says.

They stop in a small osteria for a midafternoon snack, where they wind up sharing a table with a local family. When Sonny introduces them, the entire group embraces him as long-lost family, and with the help of Sonny’s notes, a pencil, and the back of a paper placemat, they manage to figure out that the elderly matriarch of this group is Sonny’s grandfather’s third cousin once removed.

A celebration is called for in the form of pitchers of beer, but Rafael is more interested in the snack platter that emerges. Cut up pears are arranged with small cubes of cheese around a small bowl of local honey, and the crisp fresh fruit combined with the smoky roundness of the cheese and the sweetness of the honey is a revelation in Rafael’s mouth.

When they are finally able to extricate themselves from Sonny’s new cousins, he looks down at Rafael and lets out a small snort. The sun is in his eyes as they run down Rafael’s face but Rafael can see laughter in them.

“What?” He demands, and Sonny cups his face gently, leaning down. Rafael purses his lips, expecting a kiss, but instead he feels the rasp of Sonny’s tongue delicately licking at his cheek.

“You looked like you needed to be alone with that honey,” Sonny smirks. “But thanks for leaving me a taste.”

Rafael scrubs at his cheek as it heats up under Sonny’s amused gaze.

They hire a gondolier for a sunset ride and Rafael thinks now is the perfect moment, the one he’s been waiting this whole trip for. The man punting them along the canal is serenading them in a low voice, quietly enough that they can still talk, but loud enough that he won’t overhear their conversation. He couldn’t ask for a more romantic setting.

Sonny is watching their gondolier suspiciously, and when the man sees Sonny looking at him, he stops his singing.

“What’s wrong?” Rafael asks curiously.

Sonny rolls his eyes. “He was singing Britney Spears. In Italian, as if that makes it more romantic.”

They float along quietly for a time, but it doesn’t seem right to be in a gondola without a serenade, so Rafael starts singing under his breath, close to Sonny’s ear so only he can hear it.

_“Y si me dices que tu amor me esperará, tendre la luz que mi sendero alumbrará._ ”

Sonny cuddles in closer, slouching down so he can rest his head on Rafael’s shoulder while he sings.

This is it, this is the moment he’s been waiting for. He reaches for his pocket, has his hand wrapped around the box and is about to draw it out when there’s a thump as the boat hits something, and the gondolier curses as the boat wavers and wobbles.

Rafael’s been on a number of yachts, a benefit of his circle of friends, but he’s not used to being quite so close to the water as he is in a gondola, and he grips the side of the boat nervously, wondering how close they are to capsizing.

The gondolier manages to navigate them away from whatever they caught on, but the moment is once again pulled away from Rafael, and he lets it swim away.

Newark, New Jersey

They’ve been flying for almost ten hours when they finally land in Newark. Rafael stifles a yawn as they wait for their luggage to come thumping down the conveyor belt. Sonny yawns in sympathy, wrapping his arms around the shorter man, and they stand in their embrace until suitcases begin circling and they spot theirs. Sonny grabs them both and hoists them onto a trolley.

The line to get through customs isn’t also ten hours, although it feels near enough to. Sonny dimples his way out of having to pay a small fine for missing some of the food items on his declaration form – because how can he go to Italy and not bring back enough Parmigiano for the entire family – and they are finally free to emerge into the general area of the airport where Rafael is hoping they can find a machine that will inject caffeine straight into his veins before catching a taxi home.

He doesn’t find a caffeine IV but there is a Starbucks, and he orders the biggest drink they have, swigging half of it in one go.

“You sure you want to finish that?” Sonny asks him. “We’ve still got at least a half hour car ride.” He checks his phone, checking his traffic app. “Make that forty-five minutes.”

Rafael sighs and hands him the cup. “You could just say you want to share, you know.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Sonny sips the drink. “Come on, we should get in line for a cab.”

They are walking towards the automatic doors when Sonny stops, a hand on Rafael’s arm.

“Hey actually, hang on a sec?”

Rafael turns to look at him. “What?”

Sonny takes a deep breath. “The past two weeks have been…god, Rafi, they’ve probably been the best two weeks of my entire life. Getting to see the world with you, sharing that experience with you, it’s like every moment was the perfect moment, and I never want those moments to end.”

He kneels in front of Rafael, one hand pulling something from his coat pocket.

“Rafael Barba, will you keep sharing those perfect moments with me, until we have no moments left? Will you marry me?”

The very air around them seems to stop swirling for a moment as Sonny looks up at Rafael, the question on his lips and in his eyes. Rafael recognizes the ring he is holding out as one he’d admired in a shop on the Ponte Vecchio and realizes it is the item Sonny bought while he was pretending to look for something for Mike.

When he doesn’t answer right away, Sonny’s face crumbles a little. “You’re holding my entire heart in your hands,” he whispers, “please don’t say no.”

Rafael's hand trembles as he holds it out. “I’m supposed to be the one with the golden tongue, and I’ve been unable to find the perfect words for two weeks to ask you to marry me, and here you are and you were the one who had the perfect words all along. Sonny, I don’t know in what possible world you live in that you think I could ever say no to you. Of course I’ll marry you.”

Together they fumble the ring onto his finger and then he pulls Sonny up to standing. They both admire the way the ring catches the light, before Rafael turns and stabs a finger in his chest.

“You!”

“Wait, what, what’d I do?” Sonny asks, alarmed, rubbing at his chest.

“You proposed to me in _New Jersey_! I had all kinds of plans to propose, to make it memorable by doing it somewhere in Italy, and now I’m going to have to tell people we got engaged in _New Jersey_!”

Sonny rubs his arm consolingly. “If you say so, tesorino.”

“I’ll show you little,” Rafael growls, and Sonny’s laughter is cut off as Rafael draws him down into a deep, biting kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> The Spanish lyrics Rafael sings are from "Y volveré" and according to the internet, they mean "And if you tell me that your love will wait/I will have light that illuminates my path".


End file.
